Julius du Mont

   Julius du Mont was born on December 15, 1881 in Paris and departed this world on April 7, 1956 in Hastings, England at the age of 74. Du Mont was a pianist, piano teacher, chess player, journalist, editor and writer.
     He studied music at the Frankfurt Conservatoire and at Heidelberg, and became a concert pianist and music teacher and was responsible for developing an important innovation in teaching technique. It had something to do with positioning the arm in order to make greater use of the muscles in the elbow. I suppose you'd have to be a piano player to know anything about that.

    One almost unknown fact about Du Mont is that during WW One he produced a manual on the Lewis light machine gun. The gun was an American design that was perfected and widely used by the British Empire. It was first used in combat in World War I, and continued in service with a number of armed forces through to the end of the Korean War. It is visually distinctive because of its wide tubular cooling shroud around the barrel and top-mounted drum-pan magazine. It was commonly used as an aircraft machine gun, almost always with the cooling shroud removed, during both world wars.
     He emigrated to England as a young man and became a successful piano teacher. Amongst his pupils was Edna Iles. He settled in London and also gained a reputation as a strong chess player, winning many club and county championships in the period leading up to World War I.  After the war he devoted himself entirely to chess, becoming the, at various times, the Middlesex and Hampstead champion. 
     However, mostly he is remembered for his chess books, either as an author or translator. He had an uncanny ability to clearly explain what was going on in a position without giving reams of analysis. For some years, du Mont was chess columnist of The Field and of the Manchester Guardian. Between 1940 and 1949 he was general editor of British Chess Magazine. During World War Two he initiated a chess program for the British Army and Air Force. 
     Leonard Barden wrote how American master and columnist Herman Helms was a good friend of du Mont and Helms, known as a kind and gentle man, used to send food packages to du Mont during WW2 which always contained some tinned meat which du Mont didn't like and so he passed in on to the Barden family. 

His chess books: 
Chess Openings Illustrated
Centre Counter Defence 
Centre and Danish Gambit 
The Elements of Chess 
The Basis of Combination in Chess 
200 Miniature Games 
More Miniature Games
500 Master Games of Chess (with Tartakower)
100 Master Games of Chess 

I was able to locate the following tournaments in which he played: 

Tunbridge Wells 1913 – 3rd place with 5.5 out of 8. Won by Sir George Thomas 
Hastings 1913 ( Kent and Sussex Counties Chess Association Tournament) - 9th place scoring 4 out of 10. Won by Sir George Thomas 
Dartford 1913 - 2nd place out of 6 behind Sir George Thomas. 
Dartford 1914 - 4th place out of 6. Gunsberg won. 

Unfortunately I was only able to locate one of his games and that was one he lost, but it's a snazzy little one.